"It still blew a stiff breeze, but the waves rose with a length and a
breadth in them you find in no other sea; deep-blue sparkling hills of
water, with green gleams about the crests, of which every single wave
had a hundred or so; and a long seething, simmering, glassy hollow of a
still valley between, where the flecks of foam slid away glittering out
of the shadow. But, oh! it was glorious to feel the schooner rising
quietly in the trough, with the mount of a wave, to the very ridge of
it; then with a creak of all her timbers and bulkheads below, a slight
shake to windward, and a jerk at her bows, lean over to leeward again,
and go hissing through the breast of a huge sea, till you thought she'd
go down into it; while there she was, however, lifting head up, with a
swift flash of her cutwater, on the cross half-wave that joined every
first and third one--'billow' and 'sea,' as you may say. The breeze
having drawn more easterly toward morning, Jones had braced her more
upon a wind, with reefed main and foresails, and fore-staysail set,
which brought out the _Aniceta's_ weatherly qualities to a marvel, as,
notwithstanding almost a head-wind and a swelling sea, she went nearly
as fast as the frigate would have done before the breeze, and not a sign
of the land was to be seen from her cross-trees.
"It was not till the afternoon, when the midshipman and I had both been
busy together seeing various things done about the rigging, as well as
having preventer-braces and guys clapped on the booms and gaffs, that we
had time to look about us; the schooner still driving along with the
breeze strong abeam, and a floating plunge from one wide dark-blue sea
to another, as if they handed her onward.
"Jones had got himself made decent below, as I told him, till what with
different clothes, and a shave together, besides refreshment from sea
weather, he was quite a different man to look at. Even Snelling owned to
his sailor-like appearance, though rather surprised at my notion of
making him a mate; while as for the men, they didn't know but he had
come aboard as such, and to tell the truth, he was having the
main-staysail got up and ready to bend at the time, like one accustomed
to give orders. By this time I remembered the harbour officer, Webb,
whom we'd carried off so unceremoniously, and found he was still in his
'bunk' below, half-sulky and half-sick, consoling himself with brandy
and water till we should get into Table Bay again, as he said. 'Only put
him into my watch, Mr Collins,' said Snelling gravely, 'and I'll work
him up, sir.' The reefer himself, in fact, had all of a sudden turned
out in a laughingly dignified style, to meet his new post--in full
midshipman's rig, dirk and all, with his cocked hat which I sent him
down immediately to change; but he had brushed up his mop of hair, and
begun to cultivate the down on his upper lip; while being a
deep-shouldered, square-built, short-armed little fellow, as muscular as
a monkey, you'd have thought from the back of his coat he was a man cut
shorter, and for his face, he had contrived to put such a sour effect
into it--meant for great experience, no doubt--that it was only by his
eyes one saw he was a boy of sixteen or so; and _they_ were brimful of
wild glee, as he jumped about wherever he was needed, doing the work of
a couple of ordinary men, and actually delighted when a spray came over
the weather bulwarks on top of him, seeing that, instead of the frigate,
she was 'our schooner' that did it.
"'I think she walks, Mr Collins!' observed Snelling, holding up his head
stiffly, and looking aloft as we went aft, after shaking ourselves from
one of these same sprays. 'No denying that, Mr Snelling,' said I as
gravely; 'I only wish your fond parents could see you just now, first
mate of such a smart craft, Mr Snelling!' His father was a country
baronet, who had sent him off to sea with an allowance--I daresay
because his looks were no ornament, and there were plenty more coming,
though Snelling always pretended his worthy progenitor was an old man.
'Fond, be blowed!' said he, starting; 'I just see him at this moment at
the foot of that blessed old mahogany, proposing my health before the
ladies go, and----' Here the schooner rose on a sharp, short wave,
making a plunge through it that sent the helmsman swinging to the
lee-side of the wheel, while a sea washed up over her forecastle, and
away aft with the tubs, buckets, and spars, knocking everybody right and
left. Snelling and I held on by the weather main-rigging with our feet
in a bath, till she lifted bodily through it, careering to her
lee-gun'ale.
"'By George, though!' broke out the reefer, smacking his lips as we drew
breath, 'I wish he _did_ see me--wouldn't it cheer his declining years,
when I got to hand the governor carefully below! And such a rough night
as we're going to have of it, too, sir!' 'You unfilial young dog,' said
I; 'but so I'm afraid we shall--and no joke either!' Jones was standing
near us, watching the looks of the weather, with evident uneasiness, and
I asked him what he thought of it. 'In my opinion, sir,' said he,
'you'll have some pretty sudden shift of wind ere long, of a kind I have
seen more than once off the Cape before--and that as furious as a
south-easter ordinarily is hereabouts. Look away yonder, sir!'
"It had got to a clear, dry north-easterly gale that shook our canvas
every time she lifted, singing through the ropes, and bitter cold. Long
and heavy as the roll of the sea was, the sky was as keen and clear as
glass all round about and aloft, save the mist kicked up by the spray
off a wave here and there. If a rag of white cloud appeared, it was
blown away, and you saw the black wrinkled side of one wave at a time, a
mile wide, you'd have said, freckled all over with spots of foam, and
its ridge heaving against the eye of the blast. The waves had begun to
break shorter. The schooner, buoyant as she was, and sharp as a dolphin,
pitched and rolled at times like mad, and the men forward were standing
by to let go the fore-halliards, throat and peak, to ease her a little;
when Jones pointed out the bank of gray cloud ahead of us, scarce to be
seen through the troughs of the water, except when she lifted well upon
a swell of sea. The sun going down in a wild red glare to leeward of us,
threw a terrible glitter across the huge slant of one single wave, that
rose stretching away far and wide from her very bow, then brought out
the sulky wrinkled blue in it; the hissing green crests curled over to
the very sunset, as it were, while we sank slowly into the long dark
lulling trough, and saw the broken shaft of a rainbow stand glimmering
for a moment or two into a black hollow right ahead, when the gale drove
it back upon us like an arrow, as the schooner surged through the breast
of the next wave. I looked from Snelling to the new mate, who still held
on by a belaying-pin and watched the clouds, giving me back a glance
that showed he thought the matter more serious than ordinary. 'The
sooner we strip her to the storm-staysails,' said I quickly, as we fell
into the trough again, 'the better, I think. If it blows harder, we must
lie-to with her at once.' My eye was anxiously fixed on Jones, for large
as the schooner was, between two and three hundred tons, yet no craft in
the world is so nice to bring to the wind in a gale with a heavy sea
running. Scudding before it might have done for the frigate, with her
full bows, and spars high enough to keep her main-topsail full in spite
of the troughs; but even that would have taken us out of our course
after the Indiaman. Besides that, to tell the truth, I didn't
sufficiently understand fore-and-aft rigged craft in all weathers yet,
to be quite sure of what I did at a pinch like the present. 'Yes, yes,
sir,' answered he; 'but if you'll take an older man's advice, before
that you'll wear her round on the other tack to it. We've the worst to
come, or else I'm mistaken, sir.' 'You're accustomed to schooners?'
asked I firmly, and gazing him in the face.
I saw his lips open in the sweep of the wind through our after-rigging,
and he made a sign with his hand, while a gnawing sort of spasm, as it
were, shot through the muscles of his jaw, and for a moment he gave me a
fierce, keen glance, almost a glare, from under his strong straight
eyebrows--then turned away. 'Take the trumpet then, Mr Jones,' said I,
singing out into his ear; 'I'll leave her to you, sir. Mr Snelling,
let's see the hatches all fast!' And we scrambled along by the
belaying-pins.
"'Are you all ready fore and aft?' came Jones's voice like thunder in
the next dip she made, and he leapt up bareheaded on the breech of one
of the small carronades aft, holding on with one hand by the weather
mainshrouds, and watching the run of the waves as they glimmered off our
lee-beam into the dusk, for full five minutes. I had hold of a rope near
him, and his eye was as steady as if he were picking out hills in a
view. I had full confidence in the man; but I must say it was a nervous
moment to me, when I saw him lift the trumpet to his mouth--and
furiously as the wind shook the schooner, you heard his hoarse cry, 'Put
your helm up--slack off the mainsheet--brail up the mainsail--ease down
the weather boom-guy--main-staysail sheet.' And the rest was lost in the
wild shriek of the north-east gale. We were hard at it, however,
staggering as we hauled and held on, even to the poor half-drowned,
terrified Lascars, whom the midshipman had roused out of the caboose and
long-boat, shoving the ropes into their leathery hands. But I knew
little else till I saw the schooner had payed off before the wind,
shearing with a hiss like red-hot iron right through the ridge, betwixt
two tremendous combing waves. It swelled green over her larboard bulwark
as she heeled over, and she gave a heavy dead lurch with it, as if she
would let the next sea break aboard.
"'Now! now!' shouted Jones, at a pitch of voice like no earthly sound;
'aft the mainsheet, for your lives!' He jumped to the wheel himself, at
a single bound. We were in two floundering heaps, as we dragged at the
main-boom aft, and the headsheets on the forecastle, while she came
trembling up in the long bight of the sea, and took the gale steadily
before her other beam. It was blowing harder than ever; and the awful
'scud' of the sea rolled her bodily away, as she met it with her
weather-bow, washing white over the head-rail, with spray from cathead
to bowsprit; the gale heaving her down on the lee-beam till she plunged
to the brim on that side, at every forward pitch, so that all hands on
deck had to keep crowded together aft. Still it was keen starlight
overhead, the gale dry, though it was bitter cold, and the seas long and
pretty regular. The schooner behaved wonderfully, being as tight as a
bottle; and at the same time we were not only lying our course either
for the Mozambique or Indian Ocean, but instead of running farther into
the gale, as before, and getting more into the wild Cape latitudes, why
at present she tended to clear out of them. I accordingly agreed with
Jones to hold on with everything as long as possible, in spite of the
way she was sometimes flung off with the crest of a wave, as it were,
making a clear dive with her nose under water through a white seething
sea that seemed to swell round the whole horizon; the black bank of
cloud off our weather-beam towered like icebergs against the cold green
sky to south-east, the stars glittering and twinkling over it, with
little hazy rings round them, after a fashion that one of us liked no
more than the other.
"About midnight, we had got everything off her to the two small
storm-staysails, main and fore, the wind blowing great guns, and the
half-moon shining right over the long bank, as if the back of it were
dead white; while betwixt it and the washing glimmer of moonlight
halfway you'd have thought the black heave of the ridges vanished into a
bulk of shadow ten times blacker, save for the heads of spray tossing
dimly over in it here and there. All at once, in the very height of the
gale, as the black floating clouds from the bank began to cross over the
gray scud flying fast aloft, a blue flash of lightning shot zigzag into
the very comb of a wave ahead of us, then came the clap of thunder, loud
enough to be heard above the wind, and in half-a-minute there was a
sudden lull. You saw the fleecy rags of scud actually settling together
under the dark vapour moving above them, and heard nothing but the vast
washing welter of the billows rising and seething for miles round, as if
the world were water, while the schooner rolled helplessly away, with
her storm-staysails flapping, into the trough. The midshipman almost
gasped as he looked to me--not from fear, but as much as to say, 'What
next?' Our strange mate stood against the fife-rail of the mainmast,
apparently too intent on the sky and sea for speaking. For my own part,
I let go my belaying-pin, and half-tumbled to the wheel, almost knocking
the sailor down in my haste to put the helm hard up--for I saw how the
blast was to come, fairly before the beam, upon us. 'Hard a-starboard
with it!' shouted I; 'haul down the main-staysail there--let her fall as
she rises.'
"The last words were never heard, for next moment there was another
flash of lightning, this time a blaze all round into the troughs of the
sea; I saw a body of mist coming down upon us from south-east, through
which the gale struck her on the starboard beam, having suddenly shifted
eight points or so. The heavy rolling swell from north-east was close
aboard, and as soon as I knew what I was about, here she was leaning
over to the full tremendous force of the storm, without power to surge
ahead, though struggling to rise like a carthorse down on his knees with
a load uphill of him. 'Twas by instinct, as they say, I found myself
scrambling along to her weather main-channels, where I managed to get
out on the side, slippery as it was, and drenched with the blinding
showers of spray. I had got my knife at work, cutting the lanyards of
the shrouds to let the mainmast go, when I saw Snelling creep after me,
like a fearless little fellow as he was, dirk in hand; although what was
come of Jones I couldn't see, unless he had lost heart and skulked. All
at once, to my great joy, the main-staysail blew inway to leeward out of
the bolt-ropes, like a scrap of paper, the main-topmast crashed at the
cap and went alongside, when the schooner righted to her keel, with a
wild bolt forward through the whole width of an immense wave--one of the
'third waves' it was, commonly the last and the hugest in a single roll
of the sea off the Cape, before you sink into a long gliding valley,
with a sort of a lull in it. The scene was so terrible at the moment,
though we bore up for full half-a-minute to the fair steady stroke of
the awful gale, nothing but a yeast of mist, scud, and darkness ahead,
the spray torn off the ridge of the wave and flying with us, while the
triple run of the heavy seas astern was in danger of sweeping her decks
from over the poop--that I felt we must try lying-to with her at once.
"Indeed, Snelling and I hardly knew whether we were holding on or not,
as we were half washed in-board and half crawled round the rigging; but
Jones had already seized the exact point--when she sank in the
hollow--to have the helm eased down to leeward. Meanwhile he had
got the reefed foresail balanced and set, with the sheet hauled
aft beforehand--a tackle hooked on to the clue, and bowsed
amidships--everything else was off her; and with this sail she came
slowly up close to the wind on the slant of the next wave, lying-to
nearly head toward the force of the sea, as her helm was kept fast two
or three points to leeward. I never had seen a craft, of the kind
hove-to in a gale before, and a very nice matter it is, too. We drew
breath, scarce able to credit our eyes, while the schooner rode
apparently safe on a sea rolling mountain-high; rising and falling off
from the breasts to the sides of the waves, so far as leeway went, and
forging ahead a little at the same time through the fierce spray that
showered out of the dark over her weather-bow.
"Cape weather as bad I had seen before, but always in good-sized ships;
and I owned to Snelling I would rather have handled any one of them,
even with a lee-shore near, ten times over, than this schooner of ours
in the present case. However, none of us were in any mood for speaking
at the time, let alone the waste of breath it was. The best thing we had
to do, after getting somewhat satisfied of her weathering it this way,
was to have the grog served out to the men, swig off a stiff pannikin
oneself, and make oneself as comfortable as possible with his pea-coat
in the lee of something.
"The sight of the sea ridging up with a dim glimmer against the dark,
kept your eye fixed to it; first you thought it would burst right
aboard, crash down upon the decks; then she lifted with it, swelling
broad under her, while the long steady sweep of the gale drove just over
the bulwarks with a deep moan; for half-a-minute, perhaps, a shivering
lull, when you heard the bulkheads and timbers creak and strain below
from stem to stern, and the bilge-water yearning, as it were, to the
water outside. Then, again, it was a howl and a shriek, a wide plunge of
sea bore up her weather-bow, and the moment ere she came fairly to, one
felt as if the schooner were going to pitch God knows where. Her whole
bulwarks shook and shivered, the wind found out every chink in them,
whistling round every different rope it split upon, while all the time
the loose, wet, dreary spars behind the long-boat kept slatting and
clattering against each other in the lashings, like planks in a woodyard
of a November night. This was the way we stuck till the morning watch
showed it all in a drizzling, struggling sort of half-light, blowing as
hard as ever, the Cape seas rolling and heaving mountain-high, of a pale
yeasty hue, far and wide to the scud; the spray drifting from the
crests, and washing over her bare forecastle, with now and then the
white wings of a huge albatross to be seen aslant to windward, riding on
the breast of a long wave down into the trough.
"Well, the whole blessed day did this sort of thing continue, only
varied by now and then a huger sea than ordinary lifting close aboard of
us, and we being hove up to get a glimpse of the long glaring streak of
horizon through the troughs of the waves; sometimes an unluckier splash
than usual over the bow and through the fore-chains, that made us look
sharp lest the canvas of the foresail should go, or the schooner broach
end-on to the sea. Otherwise, all we had to do was to watch the
binnacle, hold on with one hand to a rope, and with the other to our
caps; or turn out and in with each other down the booby-hatch for a
snatch of sleep, and a bit of biscuit and cold beef, with a glass of
grog. Mr Webb, the harbour officer, was to be seen below in his berth
all this time, lying as peaceable as a child; whether he was dead sick
or only confoundedly afraid I didn't know; but I must say I felt for the
poor fellow when I heard him ask Snelling in a weak voice, if he would
get somebody to stand off the bull's-eye in the deck over his berth, as
it always made him think there was a new hurricane coming on. 'You low,
skulking hound!' said the reefer, who had wonderfully little pity in his
make, 'it can't be worse--what d'ye want light for, eh?' 'Only to see
the opposite wall,' said Webb meekly; 'do, sir--oh now!' 'Oh, you
lubber, ye!' said Snelling, 'don't you know a bulkhead from a wall yet?
If you'd come on deck to bear a hand like others, you wouldn't need
light; and _I_ thought you might do for a mate aboard, too--pah, you
scum!'
"'Mr Snelling,' said I sharply, as he came through the cabin, 'a worm
will turn when it's trod upon, and so you may find yet, sir!' 'Well, Mr
Collins,' said he, as confidently as if I hadn't meant to give him a
set-down, 'I don't like the fellow's eye. I'll look after him, sir!'
"Not to mention the young rogue's power of face, which was beyond brass,
he had a way of seeing you in two places at once with that upward squint
of his, as if his eyes were the points of a pair of compasses, that made
the officers of the _Hebe_ always send him to the mast-head directly,
for fear it should take the frown out of them. In fact, when Snelling's
twinkling weather-eye lighted on one's neck, without the other, you
almost felt it tickle you, and as usual I turned away with a 'Pshaw!'
"On the second morning, the gale at last began to break, shifting
southward; on which, as soon as the sea ran a little easier, I had the
helm cautiously put up at a favourable moment, the reefed mainsail,
fore-topmast-staysail, and square fore-topsail set as she got before the
wind, and away the schooner went; rising on the wide deep-blue swells
with a long roll in them, then shearing ahead through their breasts,
wrinkled and seething pale-green, till she sank with the fall of the
wave--the stump of her aftermast standing, and the fore one shortened by
the to'gallant-mast. You may easily believe there was no one aboard more
eager to get clear of this weather than myself; as in ordinary
circumstances, with a craft like this, in two or three days more we
might have been in a high enough latitude to begin looking out for the
Indiaman. For my part, I can't deny that the wish for having Tom
Westwood safe out of harm's way, and with me in the schooner, strong as
it was, played second to the notion of seeing sweet Violet Hyde in any
way again, if it was only the last time before she went out of reach
altogether; for her getting amongst East India ways of doing,
high-flying civilians and soldiers, shows, and sights, either in
Calcutta or up-country, was equal to anything else, in my mind. Still,
we had six or seven days longer of the heavy seas and hard gales, before
north-easting enough could be made to take us beyond the Cape winter,
just then coming on, and which the _Seringapatam_ had very likely
escaped by two or three days, so that she would have a considerable
start of us.
"By this time we were standing well up for the Mozambique Channel,
which I had heard the Indiaman intended to take in company; a piece of
information that made me the more anxious to overtake the
_Seringapatam_, at latest, by the time they reached open water again,
where, being the only ship for Bombay, she would no doubt part from her
consorts. We had a cruiser that year, as I knew, in the Mozambique,
where there were some rumours of pirates after the war, so that in case
of her happening to speak the _Seringapatam_ close, and having got any
word of Westwood's affair, he ran a chance of being picked off. However,
that wasn't by any means the thing that troubled me most; somehow or
other, whenever the picture of Violet's face brought the Indiaman's
decks clear into my mind, with all about her, I couldn't get rid of the
notion that some ill-luck would come across that ship before she got
into port. If any pirate craft were to dodge the whole bevy of Indiamen
up the head of the channel, as was pretty sure to be the case, he would
probably wait for some signs of separating, and be down upon a single
one not long after she cleared the Leychelles Islands, where a lonely
enough stretch of the Indian Ocean spreads in. The more I entered upon
the thought of it, the more unsufferable it got; especially one day in
the mouth of the Mozambique, when it fell a dead calm with a heavy
up-and-down swell, fit to roll the sticks out of her; the high blue land
of Madagascar being in sight, sometimes to starboard, sometimes to port,
then astern, and the clear horizon lying away north-west, dark with a
breeze from round the coast. As the hot sun blazed out above us, and the
blue water came plunge up over the rail, blazing and flashing, first one
side dipped, then the other, I could fancy the passengers on the
Indiaman's poop in a light breeze with a suspicious lateen-rigged sail
creeping up on her quarter. I thought I saw Violet Hyde's eyes sparkle
against the glare of light, and her lips parting to speak--till I
actually stamped on the deck, my fists clenched, and I made three
strides to the very taffrail of the schooner. All at once I met my
second mate's eye coolly fixed on me, which brought me to my senses in a
moment, the more so as there was something about this man Jones I
couldn't make out, and I had made up my mind to keep a sharp eye on him;
though the fact was, it annoyed me most to feel him seeing into _me_, as
it were, without troubling himself. 'We shall have the breeze before
long, sir, round Cape Mary yonder,' said he, stepping forward. 'So I
expect myself, Mr Jones,' said I, 'though you evidently know the coast
better than I do.' With that I gave him a careless side-look, but to all
appearance there was nothing particular in his, as he told me he had
seen it two or three times before.